Darling Still Has A Goal Of Running macOS Apps On Linux

[DMJC]

Wine still as mode of use ALSA and let Pulseaudio users use their ALSA emulation. RandR should have been your highest focus. Pulseaudio and Network-Manager should have been down the road quite a bit. It possible that you may never do a network manager interface and just keep on using the network manager applet.

This is the problem with attempting to make the desktop too Osx like at first you create yourself way too much workload.

The thinking was to expand System Preferences.app to have RandR, Pulseaudio (The etoile Menu Bar already had a good example of a Volume Control Icon) and Network-Manager for wireless/LAN control control icons. I was going to clone the OSX interface for all of those. I was also trying to resurrect Mantella, since a browser wrapper was all I needed, not a full blown web engine. I was going for a full OSX Desktop-like experience. with the top menu bar GWorkspace dock etc. GNUstep already had email, music player, a terminal and IRC clients. I was hoping to get a wrapped browser, mplayer wrapper cleaned up and the control panel parts done, so I could boot into a desktop that looked something like the etoile concept images.

[speculatrix]

I wish WINE would copy from Darling is their OverlayFS to minimize duplicate files

ZFS with de-dupe is probably a better solution.

[Spooktra]

Personally, I have no interest in running either Windows apps or PSX apps on Linux, if I wanted to run a Windows app I would install Windows, if I wanted to run an OSX app, I would run OSX.

I want native ports of some popular apps, like Adobe Premiere or Magix Vegas for Linux, like MainActor used to be available as a native Linux port. or even better I want to see Shotcut get even better (I love that app).

[oiaohm]

None of this is a problem for me, GNUstep isn't trying to be a NEXTstep or OSX clone, it's trying to be a reimplementation of the Cocoa API, they just decided to skin it to look like NEXTstep as that was what existed when they started the project.

Its more than skin. GNUstep keeps the NEXTstep feature s and keep on expanding forwards. There were a stack of features stripped out of NEXTstep when OS X was made.

(GNUstep actually has this problem solved using Preferences to choose a menu style)

This that GNUstep does of providing a Preference to change menu style is in fact a NEXTstep feature that disappears with the start of OS X. So putting the menu under the title bar is just go back in history and use the NEXTstep method for it..

I disagree with you on Darling's desktop integration. I think fundamentally WINE has an advantage in that Windows Applications generally have their application menus inside their application windows rather than having an Apple Menu like OSX applications do.

This is simple miss belief. Cocoa if you are using the full API from NEXTstep to current day Apple Menu inside application window is included in the design.

Reality applications don't know where the menu bar is placed on screen and this comes from NEXTstep. Of course that OS X users don't have the NEXTstep controls any more they make the mistake that this is a issue to porting.

http://cocotron.org/Examples/ActiveViewer

Darling is basing on cocotron so the menu bar will be moved under the title bar. Again this is just exploiting what NEXTstep design include and went missing with OS X.

but I suspect that what most users using the software will want, is a desktop environment that looks/feels like OSX..

Are you really sure thinking that having the menu bar on top of screen instead of application window results increased mouse travel. Yes it good to make OS X look different but its not productivity.

Really lot of ways NEXTstep had the right idea on menubar having it as a configurable option if it was in window or top of screen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_(software)#/media/File:Darling_HelloWordApp.png

Yes do take a close look at this picture. With the menubar in the window it closer to where you are working with mouse.

I've played around with making GNUstep into an osx-alike desktop but my API knowledge of RandR, Pulseaudio, and Network-Manager weren't good enough, and frankly I had other things I was working on that were higher priority to myself.

Really mostly you would ignore network manager and pulseaudio at first why could you ignore them. Simple http://stalonetray.sourceforge.net/ you have a tray and you can use the standard control applets for other windows managers.

Yes network manager provides it own Applet that gets expanded as they add new features. Finding out what links are up for applications you can just use the ip command syscall extracted information that not dependant on network manager. Lets say someones system is using networkd from systemd and you expect network manager you are stuffed. If you are depending on information the general ip command or linux syscalls/libc calls can provide it does not matter..

Wine still as mode of use ALSA and let Pulseaudio users use their ALSA emulation. RandR should have been your highest focus. Pulseaudio and Network-Manager should have been down the road quite a bit. It possible that you may never do a network manager interface and just keep on using the network manager applet.

This is the problem with attempting to make the desktop too Osx like at first you create yourself way too much workload.

[DMJC]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP
This is your problem. GNUstep is not about a OSX desktop. GNUstep looks exactly how it meant to look as a NeXTSTEP clone.

None of this is a problem for me, GNUstep isn't trying to be a NEXTstep or OSX clone, it's trying to be a reimplementation of the Cocoa API, they just decided to skin it to look like NEXTstep as that was what existed when they started the project. I understand this completely. They later decided to expand the API support to try adding support for Apple's newer OSX APIs. I've been following these projects for 15 years now including Etoile. Etoile fell into similar issues that GNUstep did, they decided to move away from desktop applications/desktop environment recreation, and moved into API/weird desktop metaphor ideas and interest in the project waned and died. Lack of developer manpower/interest definitely contributed to that implosion. I disagree with you on Darling's desktop integration. I think fundamentally WINE has an advantage in that Windows Applications generally have their application menus inside their application windows rather than having an Apple Menu like OSX applications do. I'm sure if someone bothers to they could come up with a way to make that work on Linux, or maybe code Darling to draw the menus differently, probably binding them to the top of the Application window, and having the window manager draw the outer decorations, rather than the top of the screen. (GNUstep actually has this problem solved using Preferences to choose a menu style) but I suspect that what most users using the software will want, is a desktop environment that looks/feels like OSX. I've played around with making GNUstep into an osx-alike desktop but my API knowledge of RandR, Pulseaudio, and Network-Manager weren't good enough, and frankly I had other things I was working on that were higher priority to myself. All open source projects are hard to commit to and frankly it's a miracle that we have the tools we currently have let alone the things that some people are working on.

So.... do you not know why Macs exist?

From what I've seen, they serve no purpose besides letting people show off how much money they make.

[mozo]

The OS X look is very ugly. I can't understand how people can like it. They must pay me to use it and I'm not even shure if I'll agree. Plasma ftw!

[oiaohm]

Remember GNUstep has been trying to make a mac-like desktop for 20+ years now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP
This is your problem. GNUstep is not about a OSX desktop. GNUstep looks exactly how it meant to look as a NeXTSTEP clone.

They haven't even got a web browser working (hell it took 15 years to get tabbed terminals in GNUstep and OSX had had them for a decade), and there's no tools for controlling RandR/Pulseaudio/Network-Manager.

Tabbed terminals was not need as a GNUstep feature when you had other terminals providing that feature and it not a NeXTSTEP feature.

There is no way this is going to lead to a mac-like experience on Linux anytime soon.

When GNUstep wrong target OS its never going to OS X experience is a very good copy of a NeXTSTEP experience as it was designed to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89toil%C3%A9

Items like above forked off of GNUstep could have but they never got the developer support and was attempting for a more OS X look.

If you want a mac-like experience buy a mac or build a hackintosh.

People are starting todo these inside KVM on Linux.

Don't expect Darling to be a desktop environment/Aqua experience. At best it'll throw mac apps into a window and they won't integrate with the rest of your desktop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_(software)#/media/File:Darling_HelloWordApp.png

Correct on that applications running under Darling will not give Aqua experience. Incorrect on will not integrate with the rest of the desktop. Darling applications will look fairly close to native Linux applications. So fairly much nothing like your OS X application appearance so they in fact integrate well only way this could change is if something unity or Étoilé was doing well being a windows manager/wayland compositor providing a OS X like experience.

Really the thing I don't get is with how often people built hackintosh while the old Mol, Étoilé and current Darling has so low of developer support.

People build hackintosh to get access to faster hardware than Apple provides. Of course Mol and Darling can give that.

Yes I am sick Apple users pointing at GNUstep and saying this example of why OS X like look cannot be on Linux when that is not the project objective. Reason why OS X look and feel is not on Linux is simply lack of developers with funding to make it happen. Having a OS X look and feel is not linked to running OS X applications.

[CuriousTommy]

Don't expect Darling to be a desktop environment/Aqua experience. At best it'll throw mac apps into a window and they won't integrate with the rest of your desktop.

I don't think anyone is expecting Darling to provide the aqua experience, just like how people don't expect Wine to provide the Window's Aero experience. You have to keep in mind that Darling is more like a Wine project rather than a ReactOS project.

So at best it'll be some emulated apps that clash with gnome/kde/whatever.

It is the same issue that Wine has to deal with.

[DMJC]

The main reason to run osx is ease of use. This will be anything but easy to use. There will be no hardware integration. So at best it'll be some emulated apps that clash with gnome/kde/whatever. You won't run a full OSX desktop environment on Linux and you'd be nuts for trying to. Not to mention that all the System Preferences.app tools for osx would need to be rewritten to talk to Linux hardware. The only usecase for Darling is to run a few Mac Apps on Linux that you can't get on Linux. Remember GNUstep has been trying to make a mac-like desktop for 20+ years now. They haven't even got a web browser working (hell it took 15 years to get tabbed terminals in GNUstep and OSX had had them for a decade), and there's no tools for controlling RandR/Pulseaudio/Network-Manager. There is no way this is going to lead to a mac-like experience on Linux anytime soon. If you want a mac-like experience buy a mac or build a hackintosh. Don't expect Darling to be a desktop environment/Aqua experience. At best it'll throw mac apps into a window and they won't integrate with the rest of your desktop.